Shades of Obsession Read Online Free Page A

I want Luke’s tongue to be passing me ice-cubes dripping in vodka.
    I want him so
badly now.
      ‘I don’t know what she sees in him.’ Ricks
says, because clearly I’m not the woman on his mind.
    ‘Who?’
    I want to hear
his name again.
    ‘Luke.’
    I’m told one
more time how well I did tonight and I’m kissed briefly again - that’s foreplay
to Rick. He’s not quite hard enough, so he has to use his hand and sort of
stuff it into me, and then off he goes to think about Natasha and the other mums
and I just lie there.
    I wonder if
Luke’s doing Natasha now.
    I wonder if he’s
fucking her hard now as he remembers us.
    I’m in the wrong
bed!
    Oh God, just the
thought of Luke and I am moaning.
    I bite down on
my lip, I don’t want Rick to notice the change, but I’m remembering.
    ‘Oh yes…’ I hear
Rick congratulating himself as he builds to come. ‘That’s it…’ He’s not talking
to me, but I don’t care.
    I can’t even
feel his prick, I just lie there remembering Luke’s
slamming into me.
    I remember the
bites, the bruises, the tug of his hands in my hair
and I feel the rush again, but I hold onto myself, I will not come, not to
Rick, I lie there and simply refuse to.
    I am saving my comes for Luke.

 

Chapter   Three

 
    I run.
    I don’t jog,
this morning, I run.
    I’ve changed my
mind – I’m not going to have an affair.
    Luke and I
cannot be an affair.
    Affair?
    I am crying
because that word doesn’t even work for us.
    Affairs are what
normal people do – steal slices of times, visit hotel rooms and
restaurants miles away from their real worlds, make love and then go home and, for
the main, get on with the rest of their life while they are away from each
other.
    But when I was
with him I could not be away from him.
    He was
everything.
    My body, my thoughts, my existence.
    For six weeks I
was his.
    And he fucked
with more than my body, he fucked with my head and maybe my parents were right
to step in, to demand that it ended.
    I screamed at
the loss.
    I begged and I
screamed and I ached through the withdrawal and I cannot go back there.
    He is dark.
    So dark, and I
cannot enter his shadow again.
    I am a wife, but
more than that I am a mother.
    I cannot get
lost.
    I don’t wave to
the man with the dog this morning, I race past the car that sits idling and,
when I turn the corner and take the hill, I don’t stop at my house, I just keep
running, I run the whole circuit twice more and I cannot give myself to Luke
again.
    I cannot.
    I am back at the
top of the hill and, breathless, I stop. I take my headphones out, the birds
are singing, the sky is orange, the car engine is idling and life is normal, it
has to stay normal and not just for
my boys.
    For my sanity.
    I decide to just
get through my day, to race through my day - that I won’t stop, because if I
don’t let myself think of him I’ll be safe.
    I make sure I am
busy, that I’m out, and I try not to stop.
    Because the
second I do…
    ‘May I speak
with Detective Masters?’
    I am sitting in
my car outside the police station; I am staring at the building and wondering
if he’s in it.
    ‘Can I ask who’s
calling?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘What it’s in
regard to?’
    ‘No.’
    Luke’s a
detective - they’re surely used to people ringing without giving their reasons
and names.
      Finally I am put through.
    ‘What?’
    I almost choke
with relief at the sound of his voice, surly, abrasive; it’s the sound I most
love.
    ‘Luke,’ I gabble
it out. ‘Please don’t hang up. Can we just talk, just meet…’
    ‘You know we
can’t.’
    ‘Please….’
    ‘You know we
can’t just talk.’
    ‘But….’
    ‘You remember
how it ended…’ He says. ‘Do you really want to go back there again?’
    ‘It’s different
now.’
    ‘Yes, it is,’ he
says, ‘because if you thought it was too much back then, it’s a lot worse now.’
    ‘I never said
that it was too much.’
    I didn’t, my
parents said it for me.
      ‘That